An early hint of autumn should slip into North Texas sometime late Friday with a sharp shift of the wind and tumbling temperatures that could drop 20 degrees or more through the weekend.

But it will be temporary — “more of a lovely break” than a long-term change, National Weather Service meteorologist Eric Martello said Thursday. And after a weekend of early-morning temperatures in the 60s — and even lower in rural areas to the northeast — and afternoons that top out in the 80s, Martello expects a return to more seasonal temperatures in the low- to mid-90s.

“Considering the time of year, having highs in the 80s is really nice,” he said. “As we get into late September and the start of October, we’ll see more of these fronts.”

And we’ll see a greater likelihood of rain, too, right through the winter, according to long-range forecasts from the Climate Prediction Center, along with warmer-than-normal temperatures.

But that’s still a month or more in the future. As it is now, drought of varying degrees drapes across 90 percent of Texas. But unlike much of the Plains states and Midwest, this is fairly typical for most of the Lone Star State, the familiar consequences of three months of blow-torch heat.

In the Dallas-Fort Worth region, lakes sit slightly low, but still full enough that homeowners can water their lawns twice a week. A year ago, in the worst drought in the state’s history, lake levels were far lower, so low that the North Texas Municipal Water District considered cutting off sprinkler use altogether.

“We’re in much better shape than last year,” said Mike Rickman, the water district’s deputy director, and for that he credits unexpectedly heavy rains last winter, and periodic showers right through summer — including more than 3 inches in August, typically the driest month of the year.

So when he surveys lakes that are about three-quarters of capacity now, he considers where they stood at this point last year — 57 percent full at Lavon Lake, and 44 percent at Lake Jim Chapman in East Texas — and gives thanks for a wet winter and spring.

“We had enough that Lavon refilled, and Chapman almost filled with the rain,” Rickman said. “Average rains are enough. If we get average rainfall, we’re happy.”

Long-range forecasts indicate that will happen. Still, the look ahead isn’t quite as promising as it was a few months ago.

Meteorologists have been monitoring water temperatures and atmospheric conditions in the equatorial Pacific Ocean for signs of a developing El Niño pattern, which typically means greater-than-normal rainfall across the southern U.S., including Texas, where some western areas and portions of the Panhandle have been devastatingly dry.

El Niño seems to be on its way. But in terms of weather makers, this one really is a little boy, “relatively weak … and gone by springtime,” said Dr. John Nielsen-Gammon, a professor of atmospheric sciences at Texas A&M University and the Texas state climatologist.

“The Climate Prediction Center outlooks are running with enhanced chances of rainfall in southeast Texas and stretching into North Texas by the core of the winter,” Nielsen-Gammon said. “But the El Niño response is strongest along the southern border of Texas, and not as much in Dallas-Fort Worth as in Corpus Christi or Brownsville.

“At this point, it doesn’t seem like it will be an especially wet September, though one weather system can make a difference,” he said. “But it will be hit or miss over a lot of Texas.

“Hopefully, October will be for the wetter,” he said.

Dave Samuhel, a senior meteorologist with AccuWeather, a private forecasting service in Pennsylvania, said he expects this El Niño to arrive with a typical split jet stream, “weaker in the south and stronger in the north.”

That could mean more snow than usual in parts of the northern U.S., much like the weak El Niño of 2009-10, he said, “when we had ‘Snowmageddon’ in D.C.”

But with warmer-than-normal weather expected across much of Texas, snow might just be a White Christmas dream.

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